


move from the darkness

by helloearthlings



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Bad Parenting, College, Coming Out, Developing Friendships, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 22:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19450603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloearthlings/pseuds/helloearthlings
Summary: “You – you have a car, right?”“Yeah,” Lily says, keeping her voice slow and measured, and glances at her watch. It’s five o’clock – a little early for Thanksgiving dinner but not out of the realm of possibility.“Um – if I – if I sent you an address, could you come pick me up?” Sammy’s voice loses its last remnants of composure, skewing quickly from something somewhat resembling his usual quick-witted, even-cadenced tone and into a high register filled with desperation. Very nearly pleading.Lily wonders if he’s called anyone else. If no one would come and give him a ride.





	move from the darkness

Lily’s phone rings from across the room, and for one split second, she thinks it might be her parents calling.

She knows she’s wrong without even a glance in the phone’s direction.

Still, she drags herself from the Cheers rerun playing on the TV to the kitchen table. Her low expectations can’t stop a flash of disappointment mingled with relief from going through her when she sees the name _Sammy Stevens_ flash across the screen.

Lily’s not sure why Sammy would call – it’s Thanksgiving, for fuck’s sake, and he’d said in class on Tuesday that he was going to his parents’ house for the weekend. They don’t have any particularly pressing homework due Monday. There’s a paper due next Wednesday – maybe he’s trying to get ahead? He hadn’t sounded enthused about the prospect of a weekend with his parents, so it’s possible he’s holed up doing homework instead.

Lily picks up the phone anyway. Talking to Sammy sounds better than three more episodes of Cheers before the channel finally switches to Frasier.

“Hey, what’s up?” Lily asks, trying to sound completely and totally fine and not like she’s eaten half a pizza by herself in the last hour.

The other end is silent, and she finds herself waiting for a response, confused.

Oh well, probably an accident. Lily’s a little disappointed, but she’ll get over it. She’s ready to call it quits and hang up, but Sammy’s voice cuts through in the next second, sudden and nearly jarring despite how quiet he is.

There’s a raw quality to his voice that Lily hasn’t ever heard before. 

“Hey. Um. Sorry for calling, I just – uh – you said you weren’t doing anything? For Thanksgiving? And I thought – um –”

Lily stands up straighter, a feeling of gravitas and importance clear in Sammy’s words even though he’s clearly trying to keep them surface-level friendly and personable.

“Plans fall through?” Lily tries to keep her voice just as light, hoping that it’s just as simple as that. “I’ve still got half a box of pizza left, and some cheap beer. You can come over.”

It’s not something the two of them usually do – if Lily hangs out with Sammy outside of class, it’s for school-related purposes at the very least. Class projects, studying, bitching about professors and fellow students alike over coffee.

She and Sammy have kept up a healthy rivalry during the past two years they’ve spent together in the journalism program. They’re the two best students in the class – any given class – in Lily’s not so humble opinion, and she’s very dedicated to beating him out for the top spot.

They’re friends – sort of. But not the kind of friends who spend holidays together, that’s for sure. Well, there’s always time to level up in friendship, and maybe that time is now.

“Um,” Sammy says again, and Lily can tell right away that whatever’s happening with him is way worse than just plans getting cancelled. Sammy is usually confident and talkative, and doesn’t take assistance or bullshit from anyone. He’s never vulnerable, always sharp around the edges.

Right now, he sounds like he’s choking back tears.

Lily waits, biting her lip, wondering what level of shitshow this is gonna be.

“You – you have a car, right?”

“Yeah,” Lily says, keeping her voice slow and measured, and glances at her watch. It’s five o’clock – a little early for Thanksgiving dinner but not out of the realm of possibility.

“Um – if I – if I sent you an address, could you come pick me up?”

Sammy’s voice loses its last remnants of composure, skewing quickly from something somewhat resembling his usual quick-witted, even-cadenced tone and into a high register filled with desperation. Very nearly pleading.

Lily wonders if he’s called anyone else. If no one would come and give him a ride.

She and Sammy aren’t _that_ close – but there’s something about Sammy Stevens, always has been, since the day they met in their mutually despised Journalism 1001 class. A common thread between them, a dynamic that goes vastly unspoken. If Lily tried to articulate it out loud to someone else, they’d probably just tell her that she had a crush on him.

That sort of feeling doesn’t even enter into the equation, _obviously_ – but Lily knows that if Sammy’s out of options, there’s a good chance that she might be his best bet.

“Hell, I’m not busy,” Lily says, keeping up the usual bravado in her tone so Sammy wouldn’t think she would ask incessant, annoying questions. She reaches for a glass of water to sober up even before she gets in the car, regretting the beer she’d had when the pizza got here. She’ll be fine, but still. “Where are you?”

“….Well,” Sammy hesitates, and his voice cracks when he speaks again. “Sarasota?”

That’s over an hour away. Sammy is clearly expecting her to change her mind.

Lily may not be the sugary sweetest girl in the world, but she isn’t going to fucking do that to him.

“Sounds great,” Lily says, because she loves breaking people’s expectations of her. Plus, she doesn’t know how many nos Sammy’s heard today. “Send me the exact address, alright? I’ll leave soon.”

There’s silence for a second before Sammy says, his voice clearer and a little more solidly like himself, which is to say disbelieving and suspicious, “ _What_? Really?”

“Yeah, I’ve got nothing better to do,” Lily says, deflecting and keeping all of this out of the realm of emotion because she’s not comfortable there and she’s certain Sammy isn’t either. “My brother doesn’t get here until tomorrow, so I’ve just been watching TV and feeling sorry for myself. Just send me the address of wherever you are and I’ll come pick you up.”

Lily’s voice might get a little more forceful than she’d been going for, but hey, forceful is who she is. Sammy should probably know that by now.

Sammy doesn’t respond, maybe from shock. Lily’s not known for her patience, but it seems like Sammy’s in a bad place so she’ll refrain from venting any frustration.

“Is it your parents’ house?”

Silence.

Lily instantly regrets the question, but not because of anything Sammy says.

Because despite everything that’s happened between her and her parents, she’s upset that they haven’t called her today. Even though it would’ve hurt worse if they had, if they’d made snide comments or stilted small talk for Lily to feel worse about herself and her choices, she still couldn’t help but wish they’d called. Just so she’d know they’d thought of her.

That’s her own baggage, though – she doesn’t need to project that onto Sammy.

Well, that’s until Sammy does it himself, sucking in a long, unsteady breath, “Um. No. It’s – it’s a rest stop. I walked – I walked a ways. Only place open tonight.”

Lily swallows with some difficulty, realizing the implication of the words even if Sammy didn’t intend for her to.

Sammy walked to a rest stop from his parents’ house.

Lily shouldn’t make assumptions – Sammy’s circumstances might not look anything like hers.

But it’s also Sammy Stevens, with his shaggy hair that he uses to hide his eyes, confident voice but unsure body language, clearly uncomfortable in his own skin, out of place among crowds, obsessed with what everyone else thought of him, constantly trying to be the best to make up for –

For something that he’d never told Lily, and that Lily had never quite managed to confirm with him. She’s suspected, but then again, she’s always hoping to meet other people that have one particular trait in common with her.

Now, though. Now, she more than suspects.

And if she’s right, who else could Sammy call to pick him up but the not-so-friendly neighborhood dyke?

* * *

Lily pulls up to the rest stop on the edge of Sarasota at a quarter past six. Sammy had sent her the address, along with directions from the freeway. The sun is going down, and it’s getting a little dusky out, which makes Lily glad she drove quickly.

She’d stopped herself from overthinking too much on the drive, instead just listening to local radio and picking out flaws in the way the show was run and how she could run a show much better than that. It’s a frequent pastime for her, judging other people. It’s why she and Sammy get along as well as they do – they both love to find fault in anything and everything. They’ve joked about starting a club exclusively for cynics.

Still, she can’t help worry from tinging her emotional state, which of course is only natural seeing as how bad Sammy had sounded. And sure, the circumstances that led Sammy to the rest stop might not be exactly what Lily suspects, but anything that leads a guy to sitting at a rest stop calling someone they have classes with for a ride after unceremoniously leaving his parents’ house on Thanksgiving can’t be _good._

Lily shuts out the thought of the last time she was home. It hadn’t even been dramatic. She wishes she’d gotten a rest stop. For her, it had just been frosty silence and a cold suggestion that maybe she should skip any trips home she’d planned.

Lily doesn’t spot Sammy right away, and figures maybe he’s inside – but then she rounds the corner of the building to find a parking spot and sees him on a bench on the sidewalk. 

He’s the only one sitting there, on the very edge of the furthest bench down. He’s wearing a dark canvas jacket zipped up tight even though it’s relatively warm outside still, with his hands in his pockets. He’s got an overlarge backpack sitting next to him that he has one hand curled around, but nothing else.

His hair’s falling in his eyes, like it always does, and he’s looking down at his shoes, clearly not noticing Lily’s car approaching. She can’t get a good look at his face, but she knows perfectly well that he’s not smiling. Still, she doesn’t see any shaking shoulders or tear stains, so at least there’s that.

Lily thinks about parking further away, and approaching Sammy on foot like she might a startled animal, but she figures Sammy would probably rather Lily treat him like she always does, try to have some semblance of normality since whatever happened today was _clearly_ not normal.

Lily honks her horn.

Sammy glances up, clearly a little startled. Alright, no tears in the corners of his eyes, either, even if he does look cold and miserable curled up alone on a park bench. He clearly relaxes slightly when he sees Lily, even smiles for half a second before the misery lines come back.

Still, he grabs his bag and darts across the parking lot, clearly relieved to leave his bench behind. Lily puts the car in park to automatically unlock the doors, and Sammy opens the door and pulls himself into the passenger’s seat.

He glances at Lily for half a second, before his eyes quickly go to the counsel, as if he’s trying not to keep staring.

“Thank you,” Sammy says, relief in his voice evident even those his eyes are anywhere but Lily. “Sorry for dragging you all the way out here, I just –”

“Don’t sweat it, Stevens,” Lily keeps her voice purposefully light as she puts the car in drive again, heading straight out of the parking lot. She wants Sammy to know he’s gonna get home tonight no matter if he wants to give her some answers or not. “You interrupted a Cheers marathon and nothing else.”

Sammy half-smiles when Lily gives him a quick once-over, just checking for damages again. Nothing visible, he looks the same as ever. Sammy nearly always looks uncomfortable, so that’s hardly a change of pace for him.

“It’s still really nice of you,” Sammy starts, and Lily immediately feels the need to interrupt.

“Don’t go around telling people of my good deeds, I have a reputation to maintain,” Lily says and Sammy laughs, then makes a surprised sound as if the laugh was in spite of himself. Lily doesn’t call him out for it like she usually might, though. “Besides, you sounded like I was maybe your tenth phone call.”

Sammy shakes his head, eyes still on the ground, but he doesn’t otherwise expand. Lily, with a pang in her chest, takes that to mean that she was one of the first people he thought to call.

The thought makes her feel decent about herself, but pretty terrible for Sammy if she was one of the first people he thought of. He must not have many reliable people in his life.

“Rough holiday?” Lily asks, not needling but she really does desperately want to know. She won’t force Sammy to talk, but she’ll give him the opening at the very least.

Sammy looks out the window instead of at her, but Lily can see a frown set in tight on his face. “Yeah. You could say. It’s – I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I just – needed a ride.”

Silence pervades for a few minutes as Lily merges back onto the freeway that they can take most of the way back to campus. It’s only an hour, but that’s enough time in the car together that it’s going to be awkward if no one talks.

“Don’t you have a car?” Lily asks, not meanly or like she’s judging – because, for a change, she isn’t – but because she did remember that on her drive down. Sammy had complained about parking at his building once in class, she knows for sure.

Sammy ‘s shoulders scrunch together, and his levels of discomfort go from ordinary Sammy Stevens to something quite a bit higher. He runs a nervous hand through his hair, and cups the back of his neck.

“I had a car that my parents gave me when I left for college,” Sammy says, voice small. “It’s been – uh – removed from my ownership.”

“ _Oh,”_ Lily had previously placed Sammy’s situation in _something to overcome_ or possibly _something that can never be overcome but still involves some level of paternal bond,_ but now she thinks it needs to be solidly placed in _oh no, this is permanent._

“I don’t really – um – want to get into it, if that’s okay.”

Lily makes eye contact with him, just for a moment, and she recognizes a pit of desperation in them that she doesn’t want to touch. It would be painful to reach out through that, even though Sammy might need someone to.

Lily doesn’t know if she’s that person, but she knows that if Sammy doesn’t want to tell her, she’s not going to push.

“That’s cool,” Lily tells him, and turns on the radio. The voices of Mike and Deb filter through the car as she turns it up. “I’ve been listening to this for the past hour and I think Deb can do _so_ much better than this trashy show and Mike’s disgusting jokes about her boobs. It’s radio, for fuck’s sake. We can’t even _see_ them to know if they’re as great as he seems to think they are.”

That gets Sammy to crack a smile, if only just for a fleeting second.

They listen for the next twenty minutes, only occasionally making a comment, always about the lack of quality of the show. Sammy makes a couple comments himself about Mike’s voice being grating and how annoying it is that he laughs at all of his own jokes.

The tension remains in the car with everything that’s gone unspoken, though, and Lily tries to come up with a question that doesn’t seem prying but will still get her more information.

It’s difficult – Lily’s an extremely blunt person, and she prides herself on that. She’s not used to delicate human emotions, and especially not trying to indulge them. She wants to be journalist, she asks questions to get to the cold, hard truth.

Still, she thinks she finds a decent one when she says “So did you get Thanksgiving dinner? My brother had to work today but he’s coming tomorrow. We’re not gonna get a turkey because turkey is the worst of the birds, but there’s ham and mashed potatoes in my fridge.”

“Oh,” Sammy says, a little startled, his eyes darting across to Lily. “Um. That’s cool.”

“I was inviting you, dipshit,” Lily says because Sammy _clearly_ didn’t get that, or at least didn’t want to assume. “It’s too much food for two people anyway.”

“Um – okay, yeah, that’d be –that’d be nice,” Sammy’s voice is unsure on occasion, but it’s never quite this small, like he’s expecting the worst out of everything. “Thank you. You don’t have to.”

“It seems – well, honestly, Stevens, it seems like today was pretty goddamn horrible for you,” Lily decides she can at least be blunt about her comments even if it can’t extend into her questions. “I’m just trying to – you know – be a good friend.”

She feels her voice go up on the end of the sentence without meaning to – it’s a little too much emotional vulnerability for her, and she can’t help but blush a little. Still, it seems worth it when Sammy smiles at her, just a tiny quirk of his lips but one that stays put for longer than a millisecond.

“You drove an hour to come pick me up from a rest stop without asking any questions,” Sammy says. “I think you qualify as a good friend already.”

“Well, you know me, I have to be the best at everything,” Lily moves one of her hands from the steering wheel to shove Sammy’s shoulder. Not hard, but just enough that he remembers their fun rivalry. It gets his smile to widen just a little, at least. “This is no exception.”

“Thanks, though,” Sammy says, again. Lily thinks she might have to hear that word a lot from him coming up. It’s not bad or anything, but it’s a little unnatural from their usual snarky teasing. “Really. You don’t have to.”

Lily bites her lip.

She knows she can’t ask. She wouldn’t have answered if someone asked her outright.

She can share, though. She can always share.

God, that’s gonna hurt like a bitch, but – well, maybe it’s a story Sammy needs to hear right now. If it’s not, then maybe Lily will just get some good practice with emotional vulnerability for the next time she needs it.

“Last Christmas,” Lily begins, the words heavy and unnatural on her tongue. God, she hates sharing. “My parents told me that it would be best if I just didn’t come home again.”

Sammy turns to her, his eyes wide and more than a little fearful, but there’s a piece of Lily’s vulnerability clearly reflect in just a look.

So she keeps going.

“We made a bit of a deal,” Lily keeps her voice purposefully even. “Well, they made a deal that seemed like the best option for me at that point. They said they would pay for the rest of my college if I just stayed in Florida and didn’t come back to Fresno on any breaks. Or ever. The only time we talk is to coordinate payments.”

Silence, but only for half a second, before Sammy’s voice, rough around the edges like it had been on the phone, croaks out almost painfully. “I wish that was my deal. I was just – it happened so – so fast, I just – they kicked me out. Completely kicked me out. I don’t think I’ll ever talk to them ever again, especially not about school – they’re not gonna – they were helping, I don’t know how I’ll keep going without any help – I have loans but they won’t be enough, I think I might have to drop out –”

“Sammy,” Lily interrupts, a little alarmed, as the words start to spill. Sammy’s not crying, but he’s clearly choked up as he stares at his hands, red with embarrassment and quite possibly shame. She reaches over to put a hand on his shoulder. “You won’t have to drop out. You can just go to the financial aid office at school, and they can show you what to do. You can get more loans, or scholarships. You’re gonna be okay.”

“I don’t have a car anymore, I can’t drive to work,” Sammy stares at his shaking hands, and Lily holds his shoulder even tighter. Thank God the holiday traffic has gone down, because Lily’s eyes are barely on the road. “I don’t know how I can afford –”

“You take the bus, you figure it out,” Lily says, voice coming out more gentle than she’s heard herself be in the past – well, ever. “You call me for a ride. Not every day, mind you, but when you’re in a bind. Like today.”

“Like today,” Sammy nods, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. “Jesus, Lily, I’m sorry for unloading all this on you when you could be watching Cheers.”

“Cheers is boring as all hell,” Lily makes herself laugh, and that does get Sammy to smile, just slightly. “Family drama is much more exciting, alright? Horrible and painful for everyone involved, of course, but…”

“You – you said your brother’s coming tomorrow?” Sammy asks, clearing his throat a couple of times. “So he still talks to you?”

“Jack’s the best,” Lily says, her voice firm because it really only is the one thing in the world she knows for certain. “Jack would never stop talking to me. He hasn’t gone home since I was banished – solidarity, you know? He learned from me not to share anything with them, so he’ll never get the full banishment himself. He still talks to our mom on the phone, but that’s about it.”

“I’m glad,” Sammy says, and Lily can tell from his uncertain voice that he doesn’t have any siblings. She thinks she knew that already, but this definitely confirms that he has no possible allies in this situation.

Lily isn’t an overly subtle person, and she’s committed to telling Sammy the full story in her mind, but he isn’t picking up on her mental signals to ask the question. Maybe he thinks he’s doing her a favor, since she isn’t making him share.

Lily takes an unsteady breath, adrenaline going through her as she stares at the road and not at Sammy’s face.

“I’m a lesbian.”

Her eyes unwittingly go right to Sammy’s, because she wants to see, she wants to know. Sammy’s eyes widen, but only for half a second before his mouth forms a tight but sympathetic line.

“I think I sort of knew that,” Sammy says, grimacing down at his hands. “That’s – um, that’s – that’s why I called you.”

The implication hangs in the air between them, and Lily can tell how much strength it took for Sammy to even put enough of that information out into the world.

“I thought that might’ve been why you called,” Lily says, so Sammy knows she’s picked up on it, that he doesn’t need to say anything else.

She reaches across the counsel again. She doesn’t squeeze his shoulder, but she pats it a couple of times as Sammy runs his hand through his hair again, the other hand tight enough around his knee that he’s probably cutting off circulation.

“I should’ve lied,” Sammy says in small voice, and Lily’s a bit startled that he’s even expanding. “When my dad asked – I knew he’d hate me for it, I should’ve lied but – but it just caught me off guard and – and I don’t like lying, I don’t want to lie, I just don’t say anything – but I should’ve, God, I should’ve just fucking grown up and –”

“Shh,” Lily isn’t a tactile person, but part of her wishes they weren’t in a car right now, or that the car was parked so she could just lean over and give Sammy a hug, show him that the whole world didn’t hurt nearly as badly as his parents did. Instead, she can just squeeze his arm and hope he got the message. “You’re gonna be alright. Fuck them – you don’t need them. You and I are gonna be just fine without our parents, alright?”

“Right,” Sammy says, voice rough but at least he’s responding. He even reaches up to pat her hand a couple of times, clumsy but appreciating the support.

“You can sleep on my couch tonight,” Lily says, determined not to leave Sammy alone just in case he forgot her reassurances. “We’ll have Thanksgiving tomorrow with Jack. Don’t worry, Jack’s the best – I think he’s probably gay too, even though he hasn’t told me or anything. So there’s nothing to worry about there. We’ll just have Thanksgiving with shitty food but much less shitty company, alright?”

Sammy nods after a moment, and gives Lily a look of utmost gratefulness that looks unnatural on his face. He should be teasing her about an assignment she could a 93 on or something ridiculous and light like that.

“C’mon, let’s make fun of the radio some more,” Lily turns up the volume on Mike and Deb. “You’re gonna be alright, Sammy. I’m on your side, okay?”

“Thank fuck someone is,” Sammy mumbles under his breath, and Lily tightens her grip on his shoulder instead of responding.

She hopes her message gets across.


End file.
